2D Design - The Grade 7 Yearbook Mock-up: Inquiring and Analysing

2D Design - The Grade 7 Yearbook Mock-up: Inquiring and Analysing

As said before, we are working on graphic/ 2D design using photoshop in this unit.

1. Explain and justify the need for a solution to       a problem

We have decided to make a silly funny yearbook (page) for ourselves as a project for this unit. This is a great decision. It is because:

1. We can have a yearbook that we own more (because we aren't very satisfied with all the serious pictures in our school yearbook).
2. We can be more creative because the yearbook isn't for school but for us.
3. We can learn and apply the techniques of graphic designs that we just learnt.
4. We can practise using the tools in photoshop and use photoshop to do some good job.

These things, all in one project! Perfect!

2. Primary and secondary research

The tools:

1. One of the is the concept of working with layers. This is really important and makes using Photoshop much easier than on paper. It's because when we can work on separate layers and arrange the layers, the layers can also be named so you would identify them, you can also create a layer. we don't have to think for very long and decide which layer goes first and which go second and which... Also, we won't mess up other parts (in this case layers) when we work on one part. However, I feel it might be hard to get use to it when you paint or do something, you have to work on separate layers. So it's sometimes inconvenient and sometimes take away your habit of thinking carefully before doing something because you can't do that in real life.
2. We can take import an image into the project from many places like internet or on the mac. With that, we don't have to draw or make our own image or figure or only get the image from one place. It makes it really convenient and allow people to get a wide range of images or figure or photo...
3. Now with the images imported, one good thing is that we can crop it and take only the part we want. This is really important because it allows us to choose the part we want from an image we've chosen.
4. We can also use the magic wand to take away the parts with same colour in the image. Not just that, we can change the sensitivity of it. Makes it a lot easier to just get the part you like.
5. We can also transform the images imported. We can rotate, scale, skew, distort... It allows us to make it fit in and make it look good in the project.
6. We can also erase or paint on a layer to get the colour we want and to take away what we don't want.
7. We can also make a layer which is for the brightness and the contrast and stuff and make it look good and beautiful.

The concepts:

1. For Gestalt principles, I'm going to use the Starbucks logo as an example: There are closures in many places. The "mermaid tail" is just a couple of white curved lines, but we see them as a "mermaid tail" with patterns, and our brain close it up. It also forms a circle around the body of the mermaid. Similarity: Although the logo doesn't show that the "mermaid tail" is connected to the body, the similarity that the hair down the body and the stripes on the tail let our brain relate and connect and group them together. Figure and ground: For sure, some of the green is part of the figure, but obviously, most of the green is the background which doesn't stand out as much as the white and the shapes in green aren't that special.
2. Closure. The adidas logo has closure in it. If you look carefully, you can see the shapes on the top are actually in three, and are separate. Also, the two lines in following and the piece in blue at the very bottom, they are all separate. However, when we look at them, they seem to be one whole, closed shape with three white lines on there. That is closure.
3. Movement: It is kind of like continuation. Internet Explorer and the windows 7 wallpaper is a good example. There seems to be a flow in the lines that, that make you see it's moving across the screen, while it's actually not.
4. There are also other concepts and principles we learnt. There is alignment, it is to keep related objects in a line.
5. Balance: When you distribute the objects on the surface equally in number, including the effect from the size of the objects. Many logos are so simple they have only a few objects to distribute, but they do put them in the middle (Balance is an important part for wallpaper designs).
6. Contrast. It makes the the people looking distinguish the object from object or from background... It can be done using the difference of contrasting colours, size, shapes...

We've also learnt lots and lots of other concepts and principles (graphic) designs.

3. Analyse a range of existing products

Now, I am doing the inquiring and analysing phase. We are asked to find a good yearbook example and a bad one. I have two main ones, but I'll also be talking about two other ones.

The one above is a one I chose as a good one. It may not be the best and we may not write a lot of words, but it's a good one. This is, I suppose, a sports (events) page from a high school year book. You may not notice very obvious Gestalt principles, but there are some parts that are remarkable and makes connections.

1. Those pictures are all around the text. You usually don't understand what the words are about until you read it out (boring). However, in here, with all the sports pictures around the text obvious it should be about sports.
2. The text are also usually much less attractive than pictures. However, in here, the big words just seems to grab or balance your attention to read it as it might be useful. (May be TRK means Track also)
3. The pictures are also quite similar. Of course when you take pictures of the same subject or event, they are alike usually, but when you look at the blue track background and the strong muscles, you kind of connect them all together as one event. Very successful!
4. The pictures themselves have a balance in the people (the faces, looks, bodies), and the background (the sports played, the event happening, the occasion). Nice balance! It also have bigger and smaller pictures and arrangement in place to let your attention go to some pictures more.
5. The "Indoor Track" on the left and right corner or the 2 pages are good. The colour is well-chosen: relating the blue with the track and make it feels calm, probably to balance the competition and eager in sport with a calmer colour. The left and right corner thing also makes it cool and most importantly, not take away the attention of the text and pictures.
6. Good balance of how they put the pictures. It's not like they stuck all the photos on one side or at the bottom or at the top, but they made it all around the place.
7. White space: It is a suitable amount of white space between the pictures and the texts. It doesn't look too plain but it gives the right amount of white space that you don't feel it's too busy but spacious.

The yearbook is not very bad, but the good one is much better for me. The picture looks cool and are well-organised. However, it somehow makes you feel weird when the whole page is packed with rectangular pictures and the titles are even in boxes. It does make a connection but it looks a bit irritating and should have some more space for decorating the page and make it look less packed. There is a lack of white space. They should perhaps remove some pictures or make them smaller or make the page bigger to increase the white space, so it would feel more spacious. It might also seem like the title is too less obvious and it just looks like a bunch of colourful boxes stacked neatly on the paper.

4. Develop a Detailed Design Brief

We chose and are given different parts and pages of the school yearbook to work on - events, special guests, mug pictures, class photos, daily pictures, lesson pictures, funny pictures, excursions and field trips... So what sort of page do I intend to make. I intend to make the mug shots and the autographs page. What is the target audience of our project. Of course, it is us as we are not quite satisfied with the school yearbook as we don't have much ownership to it, so we want to have one that is decided and made by us. I have decided to make this page because I think I am more stable with mug shots, but there's a better reason. I usually notice the mugshot pages in the school yearbooks especially boring. I want to make this yearbook less boring even in the most boring part. I would also like to challenge myself through the process and use my creativity. I was assigned to make autographs but I thought it was fine because it would also be a challenge to make it look interesting. I actually like collecting pictures from other classmates too, it creates more communication and cooperation. We just discussed it in class and it seemed like not much wanted to do that (they want to do the fun ones) so I thought I would give it a try. I also wasn't that confident I could get pictures of the other ones.